


A Werewolf, a Vampire, and a Small Knight

by alec



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Halloween Gift Exchange, M/M, Mutual Pining, how shiro and keith aren't already together is a mystery, i'll blame it on shiro being Too Good™ of a human and keith on being absolutely oblivious, ryou is long-suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 14:30:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12509540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alec/pseuds/alec
Summary: “So, Keith. I’m taking Ryou trick-or-treating for Halloween, and I wanted to see if you had any interest in going with us?”Keith bit at his lower lip, not out of worry but instead trying to plan between now and Halloween. “Should I get a costume ready?”Shiro grinned. Keith was practical to a fault, skipping the words and letting his question answer for him. “Yeah, but don’t worry too much about it. Any regular costume should do.”Keith never did things the easy way.





	A Werewolf, a Vampire, and a Small Knight

**Author's Note:**

> My gift to [@GothSheith](https://twitter.com/Gothsheith) as part of the [vldexchange](https://vldexchange.tumblr.com/) 2017 Halloween Sheith Exchange. I'd never done one of these before so I was worried at first, but all of your suggestions and prompts were absolutely amazing. I went through so many ideas but mutual pining and trick-or-treating stuck out to me especially. There were more things and more scenes planned originally, but this already grew to twice what I'd expected it to. I hope you enjoy it!! Happy Halloween!!

If Keith got upstairs and _immediately_ started changing, it would take him about an hour from start to finish to get into his costume. He couldn’t rush that number any lower than it already was—he’d learned that from the two previous times he’d done trial runs of putting on his costume. That meant that the only thing Keith was able to speed up would be the walking home portion of his night.

Four minutes later, Keith burst through the front door of his house with more energy than he’d intended. The door swung wide on its hinges, rattling the wooden blinds. He could hear the testy tone in his foster mother’s voice when she called out a welcome from the other room. Keith yelled a hasty greeting to her over his shoulder as he took the stairs to his room three at a time. He knew he’d get a lecture later for slamming doors and nearly breaking everything in the entryway, but that was for the future. Right now, he didn’t have time to spare it.

Keith threw his backpack on the bed. He wouldn’t be in this mess if he hadn’t stayed for detention, but him getting detention in science class hadn’t been something he’d expected or wanted. He’d _done_ the right thing. The next time that Jeremie wanted to burn something in a Bunsen burner, he’d just let him go ahead and do it. So much for vigilance.

Keith pulled out the shoe box he had filled with makeup and opened his laptop, starting the YouTube video he’d had favourited for a month now. Mirroring the woman, he took a brush and the foundation and began with his cheekbone. Applying makeup like this was new to him, but so was Keith even _owning_ makeup. He hated the foreign feeling of something clinging to his face, and applying the whole shoebox was far and away the greatest time sink in putting on his costume. But it was also the cornerstone _of_ the costume and what took it to the next level, and that’s what’d convinced him to invest both his time and his money in it.

An hour later, Keith was standing in front of the full-length mirror on his wall, rotating slowly in order to inspect every inch of himself. This was the most critical that he’d _ever_ been of his appearance. Normally, he couldn’t care less what he looked like to other people. Which made the whole situation rather amusing to him in a way—that he cared this much about his appearance only on the day when he looked most unlike himself. He removed a patch of fur from where it was poking through an intentionally ripped hole in the outer layer shirt he was wearing, returning to bottle of adhesive and trying again. He _actually_ would have been done sooner—practise makes perfect, he guessed—but he’d screwed up one of his eyes when styling his bangs and had to spend almost fifteen minutes shoring up the damage.

“Wow, that looks _really good_.”

Keith wheeled around, jumping at the sudden intrusion by his foster mom. “ _Lily!_ Holy crap.” He tried to cover himself up, but there wasn’t really anything he could do to hide his entire body. He wasn’t even entirely sure _why_ he was trying to hide. He was, after all, about to walk around in public for the next few hours dressed in this. But he couldn’t let his _foster mom_ see him like this. He _lived_ here.

“That’s one heck of a good werewolf costume you assembled there.” Lowering his defences hesitantly, Keith turned around slowly in front of the mirror, taking in his werewolf-in-the-process-of-shifting outfit. Mangy fur was poking through from various holes he’d made in his shirts, and his pants had long claw marks dug through on them. But he’d focused so much of his energy on his face using the videos that his face looked not-quite-human, and fur poked out from behind his ears and ran the length of his neck, blending seamlessly with his natural hair.

“It’s a bit cliché, isn’t it?”

Lily leaned against the entrance to the room, her arms crossed. “I think you managed to pull off a certain uniqueness with it. It’s far and away the best werewolf I’ve seen. I’m sure Shiro will love it.”

The knowing way she said it, Keith was glad that the makeup was covering up the blush he could feel creeping across his face. “I’m—I’m going to be late now. I’ve got to go.”

“Be safe out there.”

* * *

Keith wheeled his bicycle behind the tall row of trees that lined the walls of the front of Shiro’s house, his usual hiding spot when he rode over. There was barely enough room for him and the bike in the space not much wider than a foot or two. But while it was normally manageable, it was made all the more difficult with the wearing a costume, something Keith hadn’t planned for.

Standing on the porch, Keith forced himself to swallow, only now realising how nervous he was. He’d noticed a tightness in his chest while riding over but had thought it was just the crisp air of late October that was biting at his lungs. But standing here—needing to work up enough courage just to ring the doorbell—Keith felt as though something were squeezing his chest tight.

He bit down on the inside of his cheek, forcing himself to focus on something else and breaking the spell long enough to ring the doorbell. Keith couldn’t remain standing on Shiro’s porch for the rest of his life. The doorway cracked open a moment later and a head of jet black hair right at Keith’s waist appeared from behind it.

There was a steady noise of awe coming from Ryou, and the boy’s eyes were wide as they looked up at Keith. “Woahhhhhhh.” The sound of reverence in his voice was unmistakeable and gave Keith the slightest boost in confidence. “Keith, you look _amazing_!”

“Well, _let him in_ then.” Light, metallic fingers curled over the edge of the door a second later, gripping it and pulling it open to reveal Shiro—or, the _taller_ Shirogane brother. He’d opened the door with a wide, eager smile that _always_ that always seemed to looked so perfect on _the_ Takashi Shirogane. But as Shiro looked Keith up and down, the smile began to drop off, and he blinked his eyes in surprise. Keith’s heart was jackhammering in his chest as a beat passed in silence.

“W-wow,” Shiro managed, tripping over himself. “You _do_ look amazing.” All of Keith’s anxiety dropped away, and he let out the breath he’d been holding in without realising it. He prayed that it wasn’t actually as loud as it sounded to his ears. Shiro palmed the side of his face, eye contact breaking as he bashfully looked anywhere but at Keith. “I, uh, should’ve dressed up more, now.”

Keith was the spitting image of a Hollywood werewolf mid-transformation, looking for everybody else as though an actor had recently walked off the set, or a computer render had come to life. Shiro, by contrast, was wearing a dress shirt, a limp black cape that didn’t quite reach below his belt, and his lips jutted forward noticeably around a set of fake plastic vampire teeth. Shiro’s face flushed in embarassment quickly.

“Cr—No, crud. You didn’t need to.” _Crap_. Like with everything Keith did in his life, he hadn’t shown restraint here. He hadn’t even _thought_ about the fact that most people don’t spend over a hundred and fifty dollars on their Halloween costume. Most people dressing up are _small children_. He’d been so preoccupied with being invited to go trick-or-treating with Shiro and Ryou, and wanting to make sure he didn’t ruin it for them, that he’d not stopped to think it through before he’d bought a whole pallete of makeup he’d likely never use again. “I’m sorry. I went way overboard with my costume. I should really tone this down—”

“No,” Shiro cut in quickly. “No. It looks great. You should keep it. Just the way it is.”

Keith was pretty sure he caught Ryou at the tail end of rolling his eyes before he turned around and walked back into the house. “Mooooooooooooom, Keith’s here. Can we go _now_?”

There were footsteps from down the hall as well as soft, indiscipherable chidding towards the youngest Shirogane, and a few moments later Ayumi Shirogane rounded the hallway corner. Shiro beckoned Keith in through the door and closed it, and Keith and Ayumi exchanged greetings. “Your costume is so amazing.”

Ryou still needed to get into his costume, and still needed The Mother Lecture before going out trick-or-treating, even if he’d have both Keith and Shiro watching over him. Ryou was becoming increasingly agitated the longer it took for his mother to fasten up his knight costume, working the plastic armour plates onto his limbs. Ayumi, for her part, was growing visibly irritated with her son, and her speech was almost exclusively Japanese now. When Keith was over, she always used English; Japanese was saved for things that she didn’t _want_ Keith to hear. Keith couldn’t understand the words, but her tone alone made him glad he wasn’t the centre of her attention.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t take some of this off? I’ve got time, and it’ll be simple to do.” Keith whispered to Shiro from where they were standing in the kitchen, snacking on some food that they’d pulled from the fridge.

“Absolutely not. You look amazing.

“But it’s not about me, it’s about Ryou. I don’t want everybody to pay attention to me tonight, especially if it means they don’t focus on Ryou.”

“Keith, it’ll be fine. I promise. He’s a nine year old boy, dressed as a knight, trick-or-treating. He’ll have more focus tonight than he’ll know what to do with. Don’t worry about this. You look amazing, and you deserve to show that off.”

Keith’s heart skipped a beat, and his hand twitched, instinctively begging to hold something, entwine his fingers through something. As it was, though, Keith had to settle for grabbing another chip.

It wasn’t what he’d wanted.

Ryou was absolutely unmanageable when the first trick-or-treaters arrived at their door. It was amusing to watch him throwing a tantrum and Ayumi become more and more impatient, and with Ryou’s dark hair and the same grey eyes as his older brother, it was easy for Keith to imagine a younger Shiro like this (a comparison which the man himself declared as _wholly_ inaccurate when Keith voiced it). Finally, Ayumi threw her hands up in the air in exaspiration.

“Let’s take it from here, mom. We can handle the rest of it.” Shiro stepped in, and his younger brother _immediately_ sidled up to him, nodding furiously. Another ring of the doorbell from trick-or-treaters forced the decision when Ryou took off for the front of the house. Exasperated Japanese words followed the small knight as his mother shased after him with a forgotten Halloween pail. “C’mon. Let’s get going,” Shiro said, nudging Keith’s shoulder playfully, taking the basket of treats to offer to the kids waiting at the door.

Keith followed him, not for the first time wishing that he could be a part of this family, even for all their imperfections.

* * *

“What do you tell her?” Shiro called up the driveway through cupped hands at Ryou, who had snached a candy bar off the wicker basket from the elderly woman and immediately turned around to run back. Ryou did an about face, hastily saying something (that Keith couldn’t quite hear from back here but which was probably a rushed thanks) before continuing back towards Shiro and Keith. Keith didn’t need to see Shiro to feel his eyes rolling. It wasn’t like this was the first house Shiro had needed to remind his younger brother about manners, and it wasn’t like Ryou had been raised in a cave entirely devoid of manners either. On the whole, Ryou had oveyed every rule he’d been given by his mother, so Shiro and Keith’s job—other than making sure he wasn’t kidnapped—had been the insurmountable task of balancing the kid’s desire for getting more candy against behaving politely.

Ryou didn’t really wait for Shiro and Keith, walking ahead of them and onward towards the next house in the cul-de-sac. His guardians followed him, stopping at the end of the driveway to wait again. Originally they’d been following him up to the houses, but when Ryou had seen other kids (with far less attentive parents) able to go the distance to the houses on their own, he’d demanded of Shiro the same freedom.

“I’m sorry. If I’d known it would be like _this_ , I wouldn’t have bothered you into coming.” Shiro apologised, the resigned smile on his face visible through the mostly-black night.

“No, this is fine. I’m having fun just being here with you.” Keith brain caught up with his mouth a second too late. “With you _both_.” He could feel his cheeks absolutely burning, and he had to fight down the instinct to touch his face and see just _how_ hot he was running.

Shiro, for his part, seemed to not have noticed. “We’re just standing around though.”

Keith looked around at the lights in the neighbourhood and the clamour of voices. It was nearing nine at night and it had been pitch black for about forty five minutes, but there were still so many kids and their parents going from one house to another. The decorations and the costumes everywhere made the whole place feel so welcoming and warming in a way Keith never would have expected them to.

“Before I came out here to live with Lily, all of my foster parents were in the inner city. Halloween there wasn’t like it here, with neighbourhoods like this, since everybody lived in apartments and there just wasn’t the money to be able to put something like this on for everybody. I think I only really went trick-or-treating like this one time when I was living with the Parsons, and we had to take the bus for an hour one way to get to a neighbourhood we could travel around.” Keith stopped for a moment, mildly (and yet not at all) surprised at how easily and willingly he could share his history with Shiro. “So this feels nice. I think I can see how this would be someone’s favourite holiday.”

Strong arms wrapped around Keith—in awkward angles, from this position—as Shiro hugged Keith, pulling them closer to each other and turning his body slightly. It was a consolation hug, a friendship hug—a privilege Keith had received numerous times that he’d never seen Shiro give anybody else. “Keith...”

“It’s fine, Shiro.” Keith laughed a bit nervously—not for the silence that followed his story, but because it would be so easy to lean up the mere centimetres and kiss at Shiro’s neck. The boy’s cologne was intoxicating, leaving Keith feeling like he was surrounded by Shiro everywhere, and the absolute safety and comfort that emotion brought left Keith’s heart aching. It would be so easy for him to just rest his head on Shiro’s shoulder. Would Shiro let him?

Pointed coughing broke through the moment, and Keith leaped back from Shiro, caught off guard both at the sudden intrusion and at having been walked in on during such a personal moment. Ryou was standing next to where Shiro was, looking up between his big brother. Keith couldn’t see the younger brother in the darkness, but he’d known the Shiroganes long enough to sense the leveled, annoyed stare that he was receiving right now.

“Next house,” Shiro coughed loudly, clearing something from his throat before continuing. “Right. Uh, we were going this way.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder and turned around quickly.

Keith jogged to catch up, positioning himself on the other side of Ryou from Shiro. It was only a temporary measure, and he’d be fine when they got to the next house and Ryou left them both. But right now, with Keith’s heart was beating so quickly and his hand aching to hold onto something and never let go, he didn’t feel he could trust himself to stand next to Shiro.

* * *

Their small group of three had made it through most of the extended neighbourhood, having walked for miles from house to house to house. Ryou’s bag of candy was _massive_ , and Shiro had lamented the fact that they hadn’t thought to bring a second pail a little while back, seeing as how they’d actually needed to stop for a few minutes and put some of the candy from the horde into Keith’s pockets in order to make room. Keith was looking down at the Twizzlers and the Butterfinger bar poking out of his jacket, just trying to imagine how one human being could eat all of this candy in their _lifetime_ , much less within the one or two weeks that Ryou was likely to go through it all.

The boy in question was ahead of Shiro and Keith as he lead them to the next house. But with each successive house Keith could see his shoulders slumping and his feet dragging more. There was still excitement and determination in his voice, but increasingly there was tiredness as well. Keith didn’t have a watch on and his phone was now buried somewhere inaccessible in his costume, but he was willing to bet that they were closing in on 9PM, if they had not already passed it.

Keith wasn’t the only one to have noticed. “Hey Ryou,” Shiro said, and it was telling enough of his younger brother’s laggard state that Shiro no longer needed to yell ahead of them to reach him. “We should start heading back.”

That reinvigorated Ryou, who perked up immediately. “No! There are more houses that we haven’t gotten to.” He waved his free arm in the direction ahead of him, and like he’d used a magic wand, one of the porch lights went out on the left side of the street.

“Halloween is ending. We’ve hit the end of the night, and it’s time for us to start heading back. Besides, you’re exhausted already.”

“ _NO!_ ” If Ryou hadn’t been willing to accept that Halloween was over, he certainly wasn’t willing to accept that it was over in part because of himself. He peeled off ahead quickly, the sound of something falling accompanying him. Ryou bought himself a precious few extra seconds in his mad dash while Shiro and Keith bent down to retrieve the fallen pack of Skittles from the dark sidewalk. Ryou was already walking his way up a driveway to a house when they looked up, and by the time they reached the foot of the driveway he was ringing the doorbell.

“How does one small child even eat this much candy?” Keith finally asked aloud, the question of the night.

“With some help from his family,” Shiro explained, pointing the opened bag of Skittles in Keith’s direction.

Ryou was coming back down the driveway, head turning to try and locate the next house, when the light behind him went off. He’d evidently made it to this house just in time to be their last customer.

Looking around as well, Keith noted that the vast majority of the houses still in view now had dark porches, distinguishable against the black backdrop of night only by the lights from their windows. The nearest house with a lit porch looked to be some six or seven houses down and on the other side of the road.

“I think Shiro’s right, Ryou. We should start heading back.”

Hearing his older brother say it was one thing, but hearing Keith say it seemed to drive it home for Ryou. There was a big huff of air as Ryou sighed and Ryou’s face disappeared into the darkness as he theatrically hung his head in defeat. “Fine. Let’s start going home.”

Keith hadn’t realised just how far they’d made on foot until they started walking back. Shiro estimated they were probably twenty minutes at least from his house and where Ryou had lead the way coming here, he was trailing behind Shiro and Keith now. There was no motivation for him to get home quickly (especially since his bedtime was very quickly to follow his return), but Keith could see that Shiro had been right in that Ryou’s energy was drained.

“Shiiiiiiiro,” came a beleaguered moan from behind them. Ryou had fallen further behind than Keith had been aware he had, and they were still twelve minutes from the house. “Carry me.”

“Will you help me with this and carry his candy if I carry him?” Shiro asked under his voice.

Keith nodded emphatically before realising that it was too dark out to see. “Absolutely.”

The two older boys walked back to the nine-year-old, who was now swaying slightly in the chill October breeze. Shiro took the boy’s pail from his hand, extending it upward towards Keith who accepted it readily. Then Shiro turned around, kneeling down and lowering his back so that his younger brother could collapse onto him. Black hair fell over Shiro’s shoulder as he rested his head, and Shiro maneuvered his arms out from under his cape in order to loop them under Ryou’s legs and secure him. Then—effortlessly—Shiro stood up, walking over to rejoin Keith. Ryou didn’t weigh much, but he still weighed _something_ , and Shiro carried him like he was nothing.

The first time they passed under a streetlight, Keith couldn’t help himself from _briefly_ glancing over, eyes darting to Shiro’s muscular arms. He was thankful for the darkness to engulf them again when they strode out of the streetlight, keeping Keith from staring for the remainder of the night.

He and Shiro walked the rest of the distance to the Shirogane house in the easy silence they had all night. Small conversation would come up now and then, but when there wasn’t anything being said and it lapsed into them walking side by side quietly, Keith felt fine. This was a level of comfort and security that he only felt with Shiro. There was no awkwardness, no pressure on him to be social or to be something he wasn’t. He didn’t need to force himself to make painful conversation or to say anything at all for Shiro to want to be around him.

It was only natural that Keith had first fallen for him so long ago, and fallen as hard as he had.

* * *

Digging the keys to the front door out of his pocket without letting Ryou down was going to be too much of a hassle for Shiro, and he didn’t want to risk waking Ryou up even though he’d been in and out of sleep the rest of the walk home. Shiro toyed with the idea of asking Keith to unlock the door for him, but Shiro couldn’t remember which pocket his keys were in—only that they were there somewhere.

“Can you ring the doorbell?” Shiro whispered under his breath, and Keith nodded. A second later, the doorbell rang through the glass of the front door, and Shiro could feel Ryou pulling his head up.

“‘R’we home now?”

“Well that was a waste of effort if you were just going to wake up.” Shiro bumped his head lightly against his younger brother’s to let him know that he’d been talking to him.

“I wasn’t asle-ep.” His protest was undermined by the yawn he wasn’t able to stiffle. To the right, Shiro could see Keith grinning slightly by the dim light through the windows, and Shiro felt the same feeling of something taking flight in his chest that he always felt when Keith smiled like that.

The front door opened and the three boys greeted by Ayumi, who opened it wider to let them in. Shiro slipped his shoes off at the door, kicking at the backs of his heels to peel the trainers off without putting Ryou down. Their mother pulled Ryou’s shoes off for him; Shiro had figured his brother would protest and demand to be put down, but he was being entirely complacent. Which only meant that he was planning something.

“Uh, I’ve got your candy here, Ryou.” Keith extended the pail towards the Shirogane brothers. Ryou reached for it and Shiro stepped out of range in tandem.

“Not before bedtime,” Ayumi chided as Shiro walked them down the hallway towards Ryou’s room. Ryou, for his part, gave the most half-hearted protest Shiro could imagine a nine year old boy to give upon not being allowed his Halloween candy on Halloween night. Which meant that there was _definitely_ something he was planning.

“Keith, I’ll be right back. You okay to wait there for a moment?” Shiro called back over his shoulder.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll just... wait right here. Like you said. You knew that.”

Shiro was smiling as he walked Ryou into the younger boy’s bedroom.

「Keith definitely likes you back.」

Shiro nearly threw his brother across the room in shock. Ryou slipped down off of Shiro’s back as the older brother wheeled around, pointing at the door emphatically before making a point of closing it. Even if Keith didn’t speak Japanese, he was smart enough to recognise his own name being said, and Ryou hadn’t been speaking quietly. Absolute humiliation set in across Shiro’s cheeks.

「You. Bed. Now.」

Ryou made a big flourish of turning around, an action wasted when he struggled to take off his cape and had to turn around again in the process of untying it. 「It’s trueeee. He likes you back. Are you going to be boyfriends now?」

「 _No_ we are not going to be boyfriends now. We’ve— _very unfortunately_ —been over this.」 Shiro crossed his arms and glared at his younger brother with as much disapproval as he could manage.

「But you like him. You said so yourself. Why wouldn’t you want to be his boyfriend?」

「I—why am I having this conversation with you?」 Shiro stopped and took a deep breath as Ryou traded his knight leggings for pyjamas.

「Because I’m your younger brother who you love with your _whole_ heart?」 Ryou paused and leveled a stare at Shiro that unnerved him in how adult-like it was. 「And beacuse you look like you want to talk about it but you’re not going to talk about it with mom or dad.」

Shiro gave Ryou a very uncomfortable look as the younger brother climbed into bed. 「It’s not that I don’t want to be his—boyfriend.」 he said after a moment. 「But Keith hasn’t had a friend like me before. He’s moved around. A lot. He’s never had a best friend, or even somebody to trust. I can’t just betray that. I can’t inject my own emotions into this situation and take that away from him, or make him think that there are conditions to me being in his life like that.」

「I saw Keith though. Keith likes you. When you two were hugging and kissing in the street like gross grownups. He was hugging you like dad hugs mom. And he kept staring at you the _whooooole_ night. That’s what Ethan does to Rebecca in class when they’re not together on the playground and it’s _so_ annoying.」

Shiro didn’t really know what to say. He tried his best to trample down the butterflies of hope that were threatening to take off inside him.

After a moment, Ryou’s forehead scrunched together in confusion. 「Does that make you the girl then?」

「That’s—that’s not how this kind of thing works, little brother.」 Shiro walked over, grabbing the covers and pulling them up over Ryou.

Stepping back, Shiro made it halfway across the room towards the door. “I want some KitKats, a Twizzler, two Butterfingers, and a pack of M&Ms.”

“I’m not bringing you candy when Mom already said no. You’ll get some candy tomorrow when you wake up.”

“But I gave you something, so you need to give me something back.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Repayment,” Ryou answered bluntly. And then, as an afterthought: “And because Mrs. Li taught us that it’s important to share with someone when they share with you.”

“You’re in fourth grade. Haven’t you already learned how to share?”

“You’re in high school. Haven’t _you_ already learned how to share?”

Shiro looked over his shoulder at the nine year old sitting upright in his bed, shooting Ryou a withering glare before opening the door and walking down the hallway.

Keith had been relocated to the kitchen by Ayumi, where he was drinking a glass of water and leaning against the kitchen counter. The werewolf costume had held up surprisingly well for all of the wear, though Shiro hadn’t really doubted it; Keith had done an amazing job of putting it together, as he did with anything that he put himself to. The hair was a bit matted from where Shiro could see, but otherwise it looked just like when he had shown up. Keith looked a bit tense standing there in the kitchen, looking like he felt out of place, but as Shiro drew closer Keith looked up, and Shiro could see relaxation overtake him. Ryou’s words bounced around in Shiro’s chest and he could feel his cheeks warming up as he moved closer to Keith. For the first time in a very long time, he suddenly found it intimidating to speak to him.

“Uh, I dunno if you have to go home or not, but we’ve, there’s a—” _Refocus. Breathe._ “If you don’t have to go home tonight—I mean, right away, obviously you have to go home—If you don’t have to go home right away, I was wondering if you wanted to go somewhere and hang out for a while.”

_Wow. Nailed it._

“Yeah. I’d be fine with that.”

Shiro nodded, earnestly smiling a little to match the intrigued and somewhat wry smile Keith had grown while Shiro was stumbling over his words. 

“Then hold on a sec. I’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.”

With that, Shiro moved over in the direction of the Halloween pail sitting on the counter, rifling through it to pull out the requested, forbidden snacks. He wasn’t sure if he’d grabbed all of them, but he still wasn’t sure that rewarding his younger brother for this kind of behaviour was a good idea. If this was even a ‘reward’ and not flat out blackmail.

「Aah! Where are you taking those? I told you both that he’s not allowed to have any candy before bed.」 Ayumi wheeled on Shiro when he was halfway across the kitchen. Shiro shot what he hoped were pleading eyes towards Keith, but to his absolute horror and betrayal, Keith’s lips just curled in an amused smile around the glass he was drinking from.

“Mother.” Shiro drew closer to his mother, stuffing the candy into his pockets and reaching out to take her hands in his. “We both know that there is no fighting what he wants. Not on Halloween; we learned that last year. I just really want to survive tonight.” His mother pursed her lips and gave him a look of displeasure but said nothing more as Shiro pulled away and walked back towards the hallway. “We live with an absolute _monster_ ,” he yelled as he walked down the hall towards Ryou’s room, not looking over his shoulder. On cue, Ryou’s best attempt at evil cackling came from his open doorway, and had there been a lightning storm outside a peal of thunder would have rung out over the house.

Shiro could definitely hear it in his imagination.

* * *

Ten minutes or so later, Shiro opened the front door and let Keith through before closing it after them. The night had grown a lot colder in the half an hour since they’d come home, and Shiro thought about heading back inside to grab jackets for them. He’d discarded the plastic vampire fangs before leaving again but had kept his cape on so that Keith wouldn’t need to feel out of place, all alone in his own costume. A long white dress shirt and a flimsy, cheaply made cape that only reached down to his hands wasn’t likely to keep him very warm. But Keith was already a few steps ahead, and if he was cold at all, he wasn’t letting it show.

_Must be all that fur he’s wearing. Gotta be nice, being a werewolf and all._

Keith turned around to face him, the porch light that they’d turned back on casting shadows over his face and illuminating his eyes as he looked up at Shiro. Whenever they were in public, Keith’s face was set, fierce and composed and serious. When it was just the two of them, however, his expressions softened, and the light cast shadows with his lips, drawing Shiro’s eyes to them—teasing him, taunting him to find out if they would be as perfect as they looked.

“So where are we going, Shiro?”

Oh. Shit. Right, they were supposed to go somewhere. They were going somewhere. Because Shiro had invited Keith to stay longer, and then Shiro had said that they shouldn’t just stay around the house.

He hadn’t actually put any thought into where they would be going when he’d said that, though.

Shiro pursed his lips, nodding his head slightly as he looked at Keith. If he didn’t say anything while he was thinking, it’d look more composed and Keith might not see through it. All he had to do was come up with a feasible place for two teenage boys to hang out that would be open on Halloween night at 10:30pm and was within walking distance of the hou—

“You have no idea where we’re going, do you?”

Shiro let out a large breath. “I’ve got no idea.” He stepped down from the porch to stand level with Keith. “I kinda invited you to stay longer without actually thinking about what we’d _do_.”

Anywhere else, unaided by the light that extended every angle of Keith’s face into long black shapes, Shiro wouldn’t have seen the almost imperceptible uptick of Keith’s lips. It was nothing and it was everything—impossible to see and impossible to forget.

“That’s fine. I wanted to stay anyways. Why don’t we just walk around the neighbourhood until we find something. We didn’t go very far in that direction.”

It was hard restraining the impulse to reach out and take Keith’s hand as they walked down the driveway and down the way that Keith had pointed. It wasn’t as though this were the first time that they’d been alone together, nor was it the first time Shiro had ever wanted to take Keith’s hand. He’d shown control in the past and reigned in his feelings. But Ryou’s words wouldn’t stop circling in Shiro’s mind, and Shiro couldn’t think of much else. Until Keith started up conversation, unprompted and unaided—something that he didn’t do lightly. It was easy to get caught up in the conversation with Keith when Shiro knew that he was as relaxed as he could ever be.

They rounded the street corner, walking down towards the Derringers, where Shiro had lost a baby tooth as a kid. His beginner’s bike had been too much for him and he hadn’t remembered how to stop, and he hit the bumper of the Derringer’s family car—only to have the father threaten a young, bleeding Shiro that he would sue because of scratches to the bumper. Keith was smiling widely as Shiro animatedly imitated Mr. Derringer—long since moved out of the neighbourhood—none too politely (though he wasn’t much of a sympathetic character in Shiro’s memory) when Shiro abruptly stopped midsentence, another memory blending in.

“I think I figured out where we should go.” Shiro hooked a thumb to the immediate right.

“What about _that_ story suddenly prompted you to think of where we should go?” Keith asked, voice carrying a little bit of doubt but still following Shiro without actual question.

“It wasn’t _that_ story. But I was thinking of grumpyfuck Derringer and I remembered when we were kids and he’d yell at us for trying to steal this little reflective blue orb thing that one of his garden gnomes was holding.”

“What were you _actually_ trying to do?”

“Well, I mean, _yeah_ we were trying to steal that little reflective blue orb.” Shiro could feel the unimpressed stare on the back of his neck. “He was an asshole, the orb was cool to look at, and there was this...” Shiro strugged for a moment to find the words. “This childhood bounty out for him, if that makes sense? All of the children in the neighbourhood hated him, so whoever messed with him the most got to be king of the neighbourhood children.”

They had reached the edge of the woods that sat behind the houses on this side of the neighbourhood. Shiro pushed through the pointy branches of one of the trees, yellowed and fallen leaves crunching under his boot as he took the first step up the old but familiar hill.

“So, when did you lose this badboy persona from your youth and become the poster boy of what Boy Scouts can do for your child?”

“I resent that—we’re technically trespassing on someone else’s property right now.”

* * *

It was nearly ten minutes of climbing the hill—which wasn’t particularly steep, but was still a hill covered in untrimmed brush and dead leaves. Keith had stopped heckling Shiro shortly after they started climbing and the conversation had shifted to school and their classes and teachers, but Shiro felt absolutely certain that tonight was only going to be the start of Keith teasing him about Mr. Derringer. All the same, Shiro couldn’t find it in himself to regret sharing it with Keith. The slope finally began to lessen and Shiro took a step onto flat land again. He hadn’t been here in many years, but the woods seemed to have left it unchanged for the decade he’d been absent.

Shiro remembered this from his childhood—a clearing on the top of the hill that allowed them to look out over the whole neighbourhood and even beyond, out past Tieran Street and down South Haven. He’d been considerably shorter at that time in his life, so Shiro figured that they’d be able to see even further tonight. It wouldn’t give a perfect view of everything in the city, but it was an overlook that would let them see everything in their vicinity. “We’re here,” he announced (somewhat proudly) to Keith behind him.

“What is this place?”

“Well, this is just a clearing, but the place itself isn’t what I brought us here to look at. It’s what you can see from here if you look—back...” Shiro’s voice trailed off in disappointment.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?”

Disappointment—whether in the city or in himself, Shiro wasn’t sure—swelled up. At this late hour, most of the store lights were already off, the view beyond the neighbourhood mostly pitch black with only large but isolated dots of light for the coffeeshops and grocers and the stoplights directing the scant traffic still left on the road. Nearer to them, the lights in most houses were extinguished. The scene in front of them was wholly different than the picture of what they would be seeing that had entered Shiro’s mind when he’d suggested coming here.

Shiro sighed deeply, shoulders falling. “Well, you’re seeing the town. It’s much prettier during the day. I figured that things would be much more lit up still for Halloween, and we’d have jack-o-lanterns and orange lights and the whole city still bright and active and festive, but it looks like when Halloween ends, it ends abruptly here.

There was a rustling of piled leaves as Keith moved towards Shiro. A moment later, he softly checked his shoulder against Shiro’s in a movement mixed of encouragement and forgiveness. “Maybe if we come here over Christmas, it’ll be different.”

Those were the right words—for so many reasons—and Shiro perked up considerably. “Yeah. Let’s come back during Christmas.” A soft and comfortable silence fell between them as they stood and looked out over the dark city. It wasn’t what he’d been hoping for, but watching out over the suburb as it prepared for sleep after a night of rare activity that he’d been a part of felt oddly comforting.

Next to Shiro, Keith sat down carefully before spreading out and laying on his back.

“Oh gross, Keith. You don’t know what’s down there on the ground. You could be laying in fungi or something.” There was a bit of rustling up from where Keith’s head was, and Shiro guessed from the sounds that it was Keith shrugging his shoulders.

“I wish there were more stars here,” was all that Keith responded with.

Shiro looked up at the night sky, which was just pure blackness. The moon was small and distant, hanging like a tiny orb in the far sky down at the edge of their view from the clearing. Light pollution from the town kept all but the brightest of stars from piercing through the all-black expanse.

“I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the night sky with lots of stars in it, the way that you’re supposed to. I’ve been here in this city my whole life, and it’s always been like this. I’ve seen pictures of what it looks like elsewhere, but I’ve never actually seen it myself.”

Shiro knelt down next to Keith, sitting down in the pile of leaves that the other boy had spread out in. He looked down at Keith when he spoke rather than up at the sky. “Then when we graduate, you should go somewhere you can see the night skies every night.”

Keith propped himself up on his elbows, his head moving closer to Shiro’s, and Shiro could feel the weight of his stare even through the darkness. “Would you go with me, Takashi?”

Shiro’s heart was beating wildly in his chest, the thrum of his pulse echoing loudly in his head. The words were forming on his lips, but words were only second to the best answer that he could give Keith. Their mouths were so close, his feelings so intense, and for the briefest of moments Shiro was ready to believe his younger brother and take a chance. Keith was worth any risk.

A rustle of leaves from behind Shiro’s back broke his concentration so fiercely that he jumped, every limb moving in a race to defend itself after having let his guard down so thoroughly. Keith bolted upright, whipping his head in the direction of the sound as well. “What the hell was that?”

Shiro’s heart was still racing, but now for all of the wrong reasons. “I have no idea.”

They listened for a moment, letting the winds be the only thing that made noise. Shiro placed his left hand over his heart, trying to get it to stop beating so loudly.

“Do—do you think it was the breeze?” Keith whispered under his voice. As if in response, the sound of a twig snapping came from the shadow-hidden brush to their right.

The two boys didn’t wait a moment longer. Shiro’s heart was pounding in its chest as he ran in the direction they had just climbed. Running downhill sped them up compared to their ascent, though it was markedly more dangerous now, with the fallen leaves creating slick patches that would cause them to stumble forward, and the branches that they had carefully pushed aside now came back to whip them in the faces.

“Do you think it’s following us?” Shiro yelled over his shoulder to Keith, who was right behind him in the pure darkness.

“I don’t know. I can’t hear anything over our own noise now.”

“Shit shit _shit_.” Shiro picked up his speed as best he could.

It had taken them nearly ten minutes to go from the base of the woods to the clearing, but Shiro and Keith burst through the treeline in only a fraction of the time. Shiro did his best to not topple over as he all but fell through the branches that formed the edge, and they didn’t stop running when they hit pavement.

Finally though, exhaustion overcame the adrenaline burst and Shiro’s lungs felt like they’d give out. The chill of the night air was biting at his insides, and he slowed himself to a stop under the protective halo of light from a streetlamp. He couldn’t tell for certain where they were, but they had turned at least three corners on the street, and there’d been no sign of a pursuit since they’d left the clearing.

“What do you think that was?” Keith asked, stilling right behind Shiro. Shiro didn’t sense him bending over, but the younger boy had always been more built for speed and endurance running than Shiro was.

“I have no idea. It was definitely something alive. But if it hasn’t followed us this far, we should be in the clear.” Shiro stood up, making an effort to calm his breathing. “But that was so stupid on my part. I didn’t even think about the dangers we could face by going in the woods at—”

Shiro turned around. He hadn’t even actively noticed that he’d been running without the aid of his right arm, only that it was harder to push things out of his way and to balance himself as he moved. Behind him, though, his prosthetic arm reached from him to Keith, gripping his hand tight, refusing to let go.

Keith followed his gaze down to where their hands met. “You grabbed my hand the moment you started running.”

_’The moment you started running.’_ Shiro hadn’t even been aware of it happening until just now. He must have instinctively reached out towards Keith the moment he’d sensed danger—whether he could protect Keith from it or not—to _try_ to keep him safe. From Keith’s face, that was a conclusion the smaller boy had already reached.

Shiro tried to retract his hand, embarassed by the prolonged contact and his baseless worry over Keith, who could more than adequately fend for himself. But Keith held the hand tighter, instead letting the movement pull his body towards Shiro’s until they were pressed together loosely, chest to chest.

“Uh, Keith, what are you—?”

Emboldened by the adrenaline of their escape, Keith leaned up, closing the distance between their lips, finally letting go of Shiro’s hand in order to wrap his arms around Shiro’s neck.

The kiss was brief, and a whole new experience. Shiro had never kissed anybody with actual intent and desire before, and Keith was all power and intensity. It was fierce, and raw, and filled with everything that made Keith who he was, and Shiro chased Keith’s lips when they broke for air.

The streetlight from above bathed Keith’s face in colour and light as they both panted for breath, Shiro unable to find the words to be able to say anything. His mind was blank, and everything that came to him felt wrong following what had just happened. All he could see were Keith’s eyes—the most beautiful and unique shade of purple that he’d ever seen, a colour he wasn’t even sure _anybody_ else could ever have—and Keith’s lips, which were left full from the fierceness of the kiss. Then, before the faintest signs of doubt could begin to cross over Keith’s face, Shiro leaned down and pulled Keith in for a second time.

Shiro didn’t think there could be anything better than this that he would ever experience. Keith’s lips matched his perfectly, and the gentle push of Keith’s nose against his cheek was something beyond what he’d ever thought to imagine in his fantasies; it drove home just how real this was, that it was actually happening. Shiro wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist, pulling the other boy closer to him before reaching up to cup at the back of Keith’s head.

When they parted for air again, it was reluctantly. All at once, a smile broke out on Shiro’s face, all of the happiness he was feeling inside bubbling up to the surface and taking over as he looked at Keith and nothing else.

“I love when you smile like that.” It was said softly, reverently, and Shiro was almost knocked over with how much adoration and sincerity there was there. This was a side of Keith that was reserved for Shiro, and Shiro alone.

There were so many things that danced on the edge of Shiro’s tongue, words that begged to be said but which Shiro reigned in. There’d be time enough for him to say them later—so much time later, he hoped and—for the first time—allowed himself to believe. Shiro took Keith’s hand in his, threading their fingers together and reveling in how wonderful it felt to finally be able to do so.

“Can I invite you out again?”

“Absolutely.” The sincerity of the smile on Keith’s face faltered for a moment. “Do I have to wear the costume then as well?”

“Absolutely,” Shiro replied back, smile wide and mirthful.

“Why, that’s a whole new side of you that I’ve never seen before, Shiro.” Keith tried to look aghast but his eyes gave him away.

“Well, then, I can’t wait for you to learn about it.” Shiro leaned down to kiss Keith, and it felt good to be home.

**Author's Note:**

> Two days later, Shiro asked Keith if going to the cinemas together would be okay. Keith immediately accepted. “Just to be clear, though—like, I’m not _actually_ supposed to wear the costume, right? That was just a joke?”


End file.
